Five Roma team members denied entry to Indonesia

Players of Italian football club forced to fly back to Italy after team arrived in Jakarta for final stop of tour.

25 Jul 2015 08:53 GMT

Roma's chief executive praised the Indonesian public's reception of team as 'best he had seen anywhere' [Reuters]

Five players of the Italian football club Roma have been denied entry to Indonesia during the team's pre-season tour and have been forced to fly back to Italy.

The squad travelled from Australia, where it had played friendly matches against Real Madrid and Manchester City, and was in Indonesia on Saturday for its final stop on the tour.

The players - Seydou Doumbia and Gervinho from Ivory Coast, Victor Ibarbo from Colombia, Antonio Sanabria from Paraguay and Adem Ljajic from Serbia - were refused entry on Friday night and later boarded a flight to Italy.

No reason was given for the refused entry, which Roma chief executive Italo Zanzi described as a "real disappointment", given the "substantial effort" the team put to make it to the country.

However, he praised fans' reception of the team's arrival in the country.

"The reception that we received at the airport, along the streets and at the hotel was sincerely the best reception that I have seen anywhere," he told reporters at the team hotel in Jakarta, according the team's official website.

Roma are on the final leg of their pre-season tour after taking part in the International Champions Cup tournament in Australia, where they beat Real Madrid in a shootout and lost to Manchester City in the same manner.